As people begin to use computing devices, such as computers, smart phones, etc., more and more, application programs and websites continue to be developed to offer people valuable services. As a common form of authentication, many websites and applications require users to register and login with a password. With users registering and using a large number of websites and applications, such as social networks, e-mail services, merchants, message boards, games, file sharing utilities, etc., the number of passwords that a user has to remember can be overwhelming.
While some users may elect to use the same password across a variety of services, many services have different requirements for a password that make this difficult, if not impossible. In addition, the use of a single password across multiple services can post a security risk, as the user's password being compromised for one service could thereby compromise the user's account across a multitude of other services. As a result, several password management services have become available, whereby a user can register each one of his or her accounts with the password management service, which can manage the user's passwords with the corresponding provider.
Password managers can sometimes provide the user with useful additional features, such as the generating of random passwords for use with these services. The password manager can generate a random password and provide it to the corresponding service, and can automatically log in the user such that the user does not need to know or remember the random password, as long as the user can maintain access to the password manager. Some password managers may even offer the ability to generate and update passwords on a regular basis.
However, in many cases, password managers update passwords on a specific schedule set by the service itself or an administrator thereof. Because the user does not have access to the schedule for the automatic generating and updating of passwords, such password managers may often not be suitable for the needs of a user. Furthermore, such managers often change every one of a user's passwords when the schedule dictates, which again may be detrimental to the needs and wants of a user. For example, the user may have one account that is highly secure that needs the password changed at least once a day, and another account that is in less danger of being compromised that the user does not want changed more than once a week for convenience.
Thus, there is a need for a technical solution to provide a password management service to a user that can generate random passwords that fit criteria provided by the user, that are randomly generated and updated at customized intervals set by the user on a per-service basis.